Trip to Aracena

If you don't know where Aracena is don't worry, neither did I. Kelsey and I just opened up google for a few minutes, searched "cool places to visit close to Sevilla" and came up with Aracena. It is a small little town in the province of Huelva that boasts some amazing caves, large ruins of a castle and a ham museum (that's right, a ham museum). Let's begin with the pictures and I'll tell the story of Aracena along the way.

 Our day started early as we had to catch our bus at 9:00 am. Nobody on the streets this morning because it was a holiday (Día de Andalucía).

 We got off the bus and turned the corner only to see this giant structure lingering over the small town. We instantly added "hiking up to that thing" on our list of things to do in Aracena.

 On our walk to the tourist information center we saw this sweet gem of a museum. Jamón (ham) is very popular here in Spain so we figured it was worth a visit.

Ally posing with the pig herder who the museum is dedicated too. 

After the ham museum we made our way to these amazing caves that 500,000 years old. There are over 10 different lakes and huge rooms in this cave system and I tried to take the best pictures that I could in the cold dark area. I also had to be careful because taking pictures was prohibited but I wasn't using my flash on my camera so I wasn't hurting anything.

This rock formation may not look that impressive in the picture but the part from the bottom was about 4 feet tall and the part hanging from the top was about 10 feet. Our tour guide told us that each part gets one centimeter closer every 100 years. The gap between these rocks was about 3 or 4 inches, so I don't think I'll ever be able to see them touch. 

After the caves of Aracena we made our way up the hill to the ruins of a castle. It overlooked the whole city and we took some great pictures to end our day in Aracena.

We also had to do a little sneaking around the fences to get our pictures here.

 We had a little hang out at a cafe while we waited for our bus to leave. I'm really going to miss little areas like this just to hang out and talk with friends while enjoying the scenery.

We got back to our bus station just before sunset in Sevilla. Aracena was perfect for a short day trip and was a great way to celebrate Día de Andalucía.

We finished out the rest of the week at school and today (Friday March 2) Kelsey's parents arrived in Sevilla! We met them at the airport (unfortunately without their luggage, but that will be worked out soon) and brought them to our apartment. We dropped their bags off and immediately headed out to a great place for lunch. We had raw oysters and champagne along with shrimp, quail and crab cake tapas. We met an amazing group of people who live in Sevilla and who invited Kelsey and I to hang out with them during the Feria celebrations. The streets are always crowded with tourists during these holidays and if you don't know any Spaniards with houses you have to deal with the chaos of the tourists in the city. We will definitely be calling David and Isabel before the Feria parades start here in Sevilla. Now we're off to enjoy the week with Kelsey's parents and show them everything Sevilla has to offer. Hopefully they will learn a lot and really appreciate the city we are living and studying in as much as Kelsey and I do. Another post about this week to come soon. Adios!